It should start out as one phyla at the bottom, slowly branching into more distinct subgroups the farther up the tree you go, with distinct phyla at the top. Instead, what the fossil record shows is something completely different. It is like a forest or orchard instead, with the separate phyla starting out all at once, in parallel, not in a tree like Darwin's common decent would predict. There are no links between the phyla to be found.

At 7/4/2015 12:39:33 PM, janesix wrote:It should start out as one phyla at the bottom, slowly branching into more distinct subgroups the farther up the tree you go, with distinct phyla at the top. Instead, what the fossil record shows is something completely different. It is like a forest or orchard instead, with the separate phyla starting out all at once, in parallel, not in a tree like Darwin's common decent would predict. There are no links between the phyla to be found.

You use the term phyla, but I wonder if that's the degree of change you believe actually occurs... Are you suggesting all chordates are derived from a single ancestor?

At 7/4/2015 12:39:33 PM, janesix wrote:It should start out as one phyla at the bottom, slowly branching into more distinct subgroups the farther up the tree you go, with distinct phyla at the top. Instead, what the fossil record shows is something completely different. It is like a forest or orchard instead, with the separate phyla starting out all at once, in parallel, not in a tree like Darwin's common decent would predict. There are no links between the phyla to be found.

You use the term phyla, but I wonder if that's the degree of change you believe actually occurs... Are you suggesting all chordates are derived from a single ancestor?

At 7/4/2015 12:39:33 PM, janesix wrote:It should start out as one phyla at the bottom, slowly branching into more distinct subgroups the farther up the tree you go, with distinct phyla at the top. Instead, what the fossil record shows is something completely different. It is like a forest or orchard instead, with the separate phyla starting out all at once, in parallel, not in a tree like Darwin's common decent would predict. There are no links between the phyla to be found.

You use the term phyla, but I wonder if that's the degree of change you believe actually occurs... Are you suggesting all chordates are derived from a single ancestor?

I'm assuming they are. According to Darwinism, they should be.

That is what Darwinism says, yes.

But you're aware of just how diverse Chordata is, right? Fish and humans are chordates.

So you are assuming those two groups are derived from a single ancestor.

At 7/4/2015 12:39:33 PM, janesix wrote:It should start out as one phyla at the bottom, slowly branching into more distinct subgroups the farther up the tree you go, with distinct phyla at the top. Instead, what the fossil record shows is something completely different. It is like a forest or orchard instead, with the separate phyla starting out all at once, in parallel, not in a tree like Darwin's common decent would predict. There are no links between the phyla to be found.

You use the term phyla, but I wonder if that's the degree of change you believe actually occurs... Are you suggesting all chordates are derived from a single ancestor?

I'm assuming they are. According to Darwinism, they should be.

That is what Darwinism says, yes.

But you're aware of just how diverse Chordata is, right? Fish and humans are chordates.

So you are assuming those two groups are derived from a single ancestor.

I did not expect this... That's a more reasonable view on the subject than the one held by most people who have reservations.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, though. We're talking about events that happened more than half a billion years ago. If you believe this, then you should take into account the fact that we've only discovered the remains of a little over a quarter of a million species, when there are an estimated ten million extant species on Earth today.

One way or the other, the number of extinct species which we've actually discovered and described represents only a fraction - like 1% at best - of all the life that has ever existed. And the further back you go in time, the lower the odds are that we'll actually find any fossils, either because the natural shifting, compressing and general destruction which the crust is constantly subjected to has destroyed whatever remains had been preserved, or because they are inaccessible.

We don't find all the phyla in all the formations. Prior to 600 million years ago, we haven't found any evidence of chordates, or cnidarians, or... anything, really, other than individual cells and colonies of cells. If all the phyla were individually created, why wait three billion years between the creation of some of those phyla?

All organisms utilize similar processes. All organisms are made of DNA, and that DNA is always made up of the same four basic substances. If they aren't connected, why is this the case?

And these animal groups, designed as they were by this creator, just so happen to match up with the Linnaean system of classification at the level of phyla perfectly?

Everything with a spine has this face, though everything without a spine does not.

Worms don't.

Spiders don't.

But fish do, and so do you.

This is hardly the only evidence that you are descended from a fish, but it's some of the simplest and most obvious evidence of commonality I could offer someone who believes there are no links between taxa.

Yet, we can also do the same with fingers, feet, hoofs, wings and fins; and also with tails -- also shared among the chordates.

(You once had a tail too, but now it's a stub.)

However, if you put your hands up to your cheeks in the mirror, push your cheeks back toward your ears, and blow kisses at yourself, you'll definitely see what I mean.

At 7/4/2015 12:39:33 PM, janesix wrote:It should start out as one phyla at the bottom, slowly branching into more distinct subgroups the farther up the tree you go, with distinct phyla at the top. Instead, what the fossil record shows is something completely different. It is like a forest or orchard instead, with the separate phyla starting out all at once, in parallel, not in a tree like Darwin's common decent would predict. There are no links between the phyla to be found.

Most Biologists today agree that this Tree Schematic is the most accurate......

At 7/4/2015 12:39:33 PM, janesix wrote:It should start out as one phyla at the bottom, slowly branching into more distinct subgroups the farther up the tree you go, with distinct phyla at the top. Instead, what the fossil record shows is something completely different. It is like a forest or orchard instead, with the separate phyla starting out all at once, in parallel, not in a tree like Darwin's common decent would predict. There are no links between the phyla to be found.

There are actually some links between some of the major phyla, off the top of my head halkeri I think it is a potential link between moluscs, early Arthropoda and enichoderms, if memory serves.

There are also many morphological, genetic and embryological links between Cambrian phyla, so much so that if one accepts common ancestry of descendants of these phyla, there is no reason to accept it between.

Where the tree does indeed break down is at the unicellular lineages because it now seems evident that at this stage descent with modification; a requisite for the tree pattern was the only major method of gene propogation, with possible symbiotic and lateral gene transfer mechanisms meaning that is likely for some lineages, especially eukaryotes having more than one ancestral lineage.

Everything with a spine has this face, though everything without a spine does not.

Worms don't.

Spiders don't.

But fish do, and so do you.

This is hardly the only evidence that you are descended from a fish, but it's some of the simplest and most obvious evidence of commonality I could offer someone who believes there are no links between taxa.

Yet, we can also do the same with fingers, feet, hoofs, wings and fins; and also with tails -- also shared among the chordates.

(You once had a tail too, but now it's a stub.)

However, if you put your hands up to your cheeks in the mirror, push your cheeks back toward your ears, and blow kisses at yourself, you'll definitely see what I mean.

Fish-face. You have a modified fish-face.

(Don't thank me! Just send money. :))

LOL--great post.

I once had a Biology teacher who spoke like that; put a good dash of humor in his teaching. He actually brought the science alive, which is a crucial skill, I think, for anybody teaching in that arena, in order to keep his students engaged.

At 7/4/2015 3:06:05 PM, RuvDraba wrote:Jane, you have a fish-face.I'm not trying to be insulting, but you do.

I once had a Biology teacher who spoke like that; put a good dash of humor in his teaching.

I wanted it to be funny, but bring clarity too. If we can see that our hairy, tree-climbing, tool-using bodies bodies are actually highly modified fish-bodies (as are the bodies of all mammals and birds) then we can begin to appreciate just how much change can occur in speciation.

And once we can see that, I think it's much less hard to see how (for example), something like a sea-cucumber [https://en.wikipedia.org...] with no spinal chord, but a vaguely fishlike body plan and digestion, might have become more like a haikouella [https://en.wikipedia.org...] and thence a true fish.

And there's the link across phyla -- in sketch at least (although we can't ask nature to carefully preserve fossils of everything that happened. :D)

Everything with a spine has this face, though everything without a spine does not.

Worms don't.

Spiders don't.

But fish do, and so do you.

This is hardly the only evidence that you are descended from a fish, but it's some of the simplest and most obvious evidence of commonality I could offer someone who believes there are no links between taxa.

Yet, we can also do the same with fingers, feet, hoofs, wings and fins; and also with tails -- also shared among the chordates.

(You once had a tail too, but now it's a stub.)

However, if you put your hands up to your cheeks in the mirror, push your cheeks back toward your ears, and blow kisses at yourself, you'll definitely see what I mean.

Everything with a spine has this face, though everything without a spine does not.

Worms don't.

Spiders don't.

But fish do, and so do you.

This is hardly the only evidence that you are descended from a fish, but it's some of the simplest and most obvious evidence of commonality I could offer someone who believes there are no links between taxa.

Yet, we can also do the same with fingers, feet, hoofs, wings and fins; and also with tails -- also shared among the chordates.

(You once had a tail too, but now it's a stub.)

However, if you put your hands up to your cheeks in the mirror, push your cheeks back toward your ears, and blow kisses at yourself, you'll definitely see what I mean.

Fish-face. You have a modified fish-face.

(Don't thank me! Just send money. :))

No, no, no Ruv, you have it all wrong. The Intelligent Designer was merely re-using components to save time and effort. He decided that all bony things should have their eyes, nose/snout and mouth in this particular configuration and he stuck to this template. You know, when you're on a good thing, stick to it. This should be obvious, Ruv. Don't over-complicate things. Lol.

Everything with a spine has this face, though everything without a spine does not.

Worms don't.

Spiders don't.

But fish do, and so do you.

This is hardly the only evidence that you are descended from a fish, but it's some of the simplest and most obvious evidence of commonality I could offer someone who believes there are no links between taxa.

Yet, we can also do the same with fingers, feet, hoofs, wings and fins; and also with tails -- also shared among the chordates.

(You once had a tail too, but now it's a stub.)

However, if you put your hands up to your cheeks in the mirror, push your cheeks back toward your ears, and blow kisses at yourself, you'll definitely see what I mean.

Fish-face. You have a modified fish-face.

(Don't thank me! Just send money. :))

I have no problems with the evidence that we are desended from fish. I am just noting that the tree of life is more like an orchard, with no links between the phyla. Where are the common ancestors in the precambrian?

At 7/4/2015 12:39:33 PM, janesix wrote:It should start out as one phyla at the bottom, slowly branching into more distinct subgroups the farther up the tree you go, with distinct phyla at the top. Instead, what the fossil record shows is something completely different. It is like a forest or orchard instead, with the separate phyla starting out all at once, in parallel, not in a tree like Darwin's common decent would predict. There are no links between the phyla to be found.

Most Biologists today agree that this Tree Schematic is the most accurate......

At 7/4/2015 1:00:17 PM, Aran55633 wrote:Are you suggesting all chordates are derived from a single ancestor?

I'm assuming they are. According to Darwinism, they should be.

You need to write to the effect that:

There's overwhelming evidence of common ancestry among the chordates

Firstly, because there is, and secondly because your position depends on it. So that's a position you need to defend independently, not leave dangling with an appeal to authority -- and certainly not an authority you just contradicted. Especially, you need to defend it strenuously against the most common contra-evolutionary position held in this forum, which is that there is no evolution at all between species -- dogs and cats, apples and oranges had no common ancestors.

So, saying that you have 'no problem' with evolution among chordates should mean that you:1) Have done due diligence on evidence that minnows and mammoths have a common ancestor; and2) Are convinced beyond all reasonable doubt that they do, and are willing to defend that position and explain it to people who don't feel as you do.

Else you're equivocating, or misrepresenting your position.

So let me assume that you've done diligence on the evidence of common chordate ancestry and are willing to defend that position to any other layperson.

Since you are, then by definition you are willing to defend the proposition that in a relatively short period of biological time (about 360 million years):1) Fins can become feet, fingers, wings, hooves, paws and claws, with arms or legs to drive them;2) Scales can become fur, feathers and hairy skin;3) A vestigial fish nose can become a snout, or a trunk;4) Holes can appear in the side of the skill and ears can grow there;5) Lungs can appear, and cold-blooded metabolisms can become warm-blooded;6) Fish brains can develop basal ganglia, amygdalae, hypothalamus, hippocampus and a cerebral cortex;7) Huge variations in size and behaviour -- feeding, socialisation, sexual reproduction, and the raising of young are also possible; and finally that8) It is not necessary to see transitional fossil paths for every single species to understand that there's an overwhelming weight of evidence for evolution among chordates from a common ancestor.

I'm going to assume you not only accept, but support this. So let's move on to the Cambrian period.

A scientific account of why there was a huge explosion of animal life and animal complexity in the Cambrian period may also help explain the fossil record. Here's my quick, I'm-not-a-biologist sketch:

Before the Cambrian era, the majority of living organisms were simple, had only one cell, and nearly all lived in the water. At the beginning of the Cambrian, around 540 million years ago, a kind of fractal fernlike creature called the Charnia [https://en.wikipedia.org...] browsed the sea-floor, perhaps displacing a kind of quilted animal called an Ediacara that lived stuck to rocks [https://en.wikipedia.org...] and which had been around for 30 million years before that. But at this time, the dry and rocky land had very little on it except a small crust of microbes. and a few small, shell-less molluscs browsing like pond-snails on the biofilm. Very little of the life here is mineralised, Jane -- there's not much calcium in their bodies to leave a fossil trace, so paleontologists have to rely on the rare finds that preserve soft tissue, and some other clever analysis.

However, about 540 million years ago, the first small, shelly fossils appeared -- fossils of molluscs, and a kind of chain-mail slug called a Halkieriid. Twenty million years after that came trilobites and the first ancestors in the phylum that now contains star-fish and sea-cucumbers. Like the Ediacara, some of these guys still didn't move around much, Jane -- they stuck to rock and fed on the simple life floating around in the water. Yet only ten million years later can be found the Conodont [https://en.wikipedia.org...] -- a toothed chordate vaguely like an eel -- a mobile, swimming hunter -- tiny at only 1cm in length, though some eventually became monsters 40cm long. A Conodont has a spinal cord, but no spine. It's only 'hard bits' are teeth and for a long time (until whole examples were found), scientists weren't sure whether they were pieces of clams, sponges or even worms. It may not be our first chordate, but it appears pretty quickly, even as the star-fish and sea-cucumbers are still sorting themselves out.

So life is diversifying very fast at this time, Jane. After a speculated 1.5 billion years of simple life floating around in the water, glued to rocks, and glorified bracken-impressions trying to learn to be browsing animals, the animal phyla we know today -- from starfish to beginnings of creatures with with spinal nerves but no backbone -- just explode. They're changing rapidly, but the fossilisation rate remains constant. So like a film with a slow shutter-speed taking a picture of a fast-moving car, there's a lot of blur in the picture.

But that's still no excuse for lazy analysis. So let's look at some specifics from the fossil record.

Let's first consider the Haikouichthys, an early fish of the Cambrian era, and probably a chordate, and possibly a chordate with a head [https://en.wikipedia.org...] (yes, fish had to invent heads before they could do faces.) It lived about 525 million years ago, but certainly looks pretty fishy, doesn't it?

Let's look too at the Yunnanozoon lividum [https://en.wikipedia.org...], a similar animal that might also be a chordate, but nobody can be sure, because it also has similarities in common with the acorn-worm [https://en.wikipedia.org...] -- a wormlike invertebrate (and not a chordate) related to starfish, sea urchins and sea cucumbers, and which remains alive today.

Yunnanozoon -- Conodont -- Haikouicthys. All tubey swimming, finned animals with fins. The first doing acorn-worm impressions and providing credible links to the sea-cucumbers. The second with a spinal cord but no spine, and a soft, squishy body and hard teeth, and the third with a spinal chord doing its best to grow a proper head like any self-respecting fish.

So, the position you'd like us to accept, Jane, is that in 360 million years, an anchovy can grow fur, fingers, ears, a prehensile tail and a fondness for smashing atoms, but an acorn-worm cannot grow eyes, fins and a spine in 50 million.

That seems a little biased, don't you think?

Moreover, your position does not come for free, Jane. In addition to incurring an obligation to strenuously defend evolution among chordates and sea-cucumbers, the questions you must also answer are:

1) What step from acorn-worm to fish is harder than the steps from fish to a primate capable of atom-smashing and interplanetary travel?2) Given that the first chordates had spinal nerves but no spines, and the galloping pace of biodiversification in the Cambrian, why is the lack of fossil evidence such a concern? And finally3) Given the strong similarities between early molluscs, echinoderms and fish, where else did the fish come from, if not from creatures like acorn-worms and Conodonts?

At 7/4/2015 1:00:17 PM, Aran55633 wrote:Are you suggesting all chordates are derived from a single ancestor?

I'm assuming they are. According to Darwinism, they should be.

You need to write to the effect that:

There's overwhelming evidence of common ancestry among the chordates

Else you're equivocating, or misrepresenting your position.

So let me assume that you've done diligence on the evidence of common chordate ancestry and are willing to defend that position to any other layperson.

Since you are, then by definition you are willing to defend the proposition that in a relatively short period of biological time (about 360 million years):1) Fins can become feet, fingers, wings, hooves, paws and claws, with arms or legs to drive them;2) Scales can become fur, feathers and hairy skin;3) A vestigial fish nose can become a snout, or a trunk;4) Holes can appear in the side of the skill and ears can grow there;5) Lungs can appear, and cold-blooded metabolisms can become warm-blooded;6) Fish brains can develop basal ganglia, amygdalae, hypothalamus, hippocampus and a cerebral cortex;7) Huge variations in size and behaviour -- feeding, socialisation, sexual reproduction, and the raising of young are also possible; and finally that8) It is not necessary to see transitional fossil paths for every single species to understand that there's an overwhelming weight of evidence for evolution among chordates from a common ancestor.

I'm going to assume you not only accept, but support this. So let's move on to the Cambrian period.

A scientific account of why there was a huge explosion of animal life and animal complexity in the Cambrian period may also help explain the fossil record. Here's my quick, I'm-not-a-biologist sketch:

Before the Cambrian era, the majority of living organisms were simple, had only one cell, and nearly all lived in the water. At the beginning of the Cambrian, around 540 million years ago, a kind of fractal fernlike creature called the Charnia [https://en.wikipedia.org...] browsed the sea-floor, perhaps displacing a kind of quilted animal called an Ediacara that lived stuck to rocks [https://en.wikipedia.org...] and which had been around for 30 million years before that. But at this time, the dry and rocky land had very little on it except a small crust of microbes. and a few small, shell-less molluscs browsing like pond-snails on the biofilm. Very little of the life here is mineralised, Jane -- there's not much calcium in their bodies to leave a fossil trace, so paleontologists have to rely on the rare finds that preserve soft tissue, and some other clever analysis.

However, about 540 million years ago, the first small, shelly fossils appeared -- fossils of molluscs, and a kind of chain-mail slug called a Halkieriid. Twenty million years after that came trilobites and the first ancestors in the phylum that now contains star-fish and sea-cucumbers. Like the Ediacara, some of these guys still didn't move around much, Jane -- they stuck to rock and fed on the simple life floating around in the water. Yet only ten million years later can be found the Conodont [https://en.wikipedia.org...] -- a toothed chordate vaguely like an eel -- a mobile, swimming hunter -- tiny at only 1cm in length, though some eventually became monsters 40cm long. A Conodont has a spinal cord, but no spine. It's only 'hard bits' are teeth and for a long time (until whole examples were found), scientists weren't sure whether they were pieces of clams, sponges or even worms. It may not be our first chordate, but it appears pretty quickly, even as the star-fish and sea-cucumbers are still sorting themselves out.

So life is diversifying very fast at this time, Jane. After a speculated 1.5 billion years of simple life floating around in the water, glued to rocks, and glorified bracken-impressions trying to learn to be browsing animals, the animal phyla we know today -- from starfish to beginnings of creatures with with spinal nerves but no backbone -- just explode. They're changing rapidly, but the fossilisation rate remains constant. So like a film with a slow shutter-speed taking a picture of a fast-moving car, there's a lot of blur in the picture.

But that's still no excuse for lazy analysis. So let's look at some specifics from the fossil record.

Let's first consider the Haikouichthys, an early fish of the Cambrian era, and probably a chordate, and possibly a chordate with a head [https://en.wikipedia.org...] (yes, fish had to invent heads before they could do faces.) It lived about 525 million years ago, but certainly looks pretty fishy, doesn't it?

Let's look too at the Yunnanozoon lividum [https://en.wikipedia.org...], a similar animal that might also be a chordate, but nobody can be sure, because it also has similarities in common with the acorn-worm [https://en.wikipedia.org...] -- a wormlike invertebrate (and not a chordate) related to starfish, sea urchins and sea cucumbers, and which remains alive today.

Yunnanozoon -- Conodont -- Haikouicthys. All tubey swimming, finned animals with fins. The first doing acorn-worm impressions and providing credible links to the sea-cucumbers. The second with a spinal cord but no spine, and a soft, squishy body and hard teeth, and the third with a spinal chord doing its best to grow a proper head like any self-respecting fish.

So, the position you'd like us to accept, Jane, is that in 360 million years, an anchovy can grow fur, fingers, ears, a prehensile tail and a fondness for smashing atoms, but an acorn-worm cannot grow eyes, fins and a spine in 50 million.

That seems a little biased, don't you think?

Moreover, your position does not come for free, Jane. In addition to incurring an obligation to strenuously defend evolution among chordates and sea-cucumbers, the questions you must also answer are:

1) What step from acorn-worm to fish is harder than the steps from fish to a primate capable of atom-smashing and interplanetary travel?2) Given that the first chordates had spinal nerves but no spines, and the galloping pace of biodiversification in the Cambrian, why is the lack of fossil evidence such a concern? And finally3) Given the strong similarities between early molluscs, echinoderms and fish, where else did the fish come from, if not from creatures like acorn-worms and Conodonts?

I hope that may be helpful.

G' day, DRuv.I just read...with great interest and enjoyment..your post. I would like to specifically address the part concerning vestigial traits in humans.

These are the the ones I am aware of.........

Nipples on men

Our coccyx (tail bone) which I think was a tail? Which we last had about 60 MYA when were in our "tree shrew" stage. (I do not recall the specific name for us at this stage, and have only seen some artistic renderings. A shrew is what the animal reminded me of. Or maybe a small lemur!

Body Hair. Obviously it was formerly scales and then fur.

Our fight or flight physiological response to duress, or a perceived physical threat. Our hair stands on end. Mammals today use this same tactic during their own f or f responses so as to make themselves appear larger to a potential enemy.

So...do you know of any other vestigial traits we have? And can you tell me

G' day, DRuv.I just read...with great interest and enjoyment..your post. I would like to specifically address the part concerning vestigial traits in humans.

These are the the ones I am aware of.........

Nipples on men

Our coccyx (tail bone) which I think was a tail? Which we last had about 60 MYA when were in our "tree shrew" stage. (I do not recall the specific name for us at this stage, and have only seen some artistic renderings. A shrew is what the animal reminded me of. Or maybe a small lemur!

Body Hair. Obviously it was formerly scales and then fur.

Our fight or flight physiological response to duress, or a perceived physical threat. Our hair stands on end. Mammals today use this same tactic during their own f or f responses so as to make themselves appear larger to a potential enemy.

So...do you know of any other vestigial traits we have? And can you tell me ...

I could add:

Wisdom teeth: we have too many teeth for our mouths, a hangover from the time when our jaws protruded more and could accomodate more teeth.

G' day, DRuv.I just read...with great interest and enjoyment..your post. I would like to specifically address the part concerning vestigial traits in humans.

These are the the ones I am aware of.........

Nipples on men

Our coccyx (tail bone) which I think was a tail? Which we last had about 60 MYA when were in our "tree shrew" stage. (I do not recall the specific name for us at this stage, and have only seen some artistic renderings. A shrew is what the animal reminded me of. Or maybe a small lemur!

Body Hair. Obviously it was formerly scales and then fur.

Our fight or flight physiological response to duress, or a perceived physical threat. Our hair stands on end. Mammals today use this same tactic during their own f or f responses so as to make themselves appear larger to a potential enemy.

So...do you know of any other vestigial traits we have? And can you tell me ...

I could add:

Wisdom teeth: we have too many teeth for our mouths, a hangover from the time when our jaws protruded more and could accomodate more teeth.

Yeah..I think the goose bumps is a part of the "fight or flight" dynamic I mentioned, which causes our fur to stand up in order to make us appear larger and more threatening.

Wisdom teeth" For chewing herbal matter when we were vegetarians? Because lord knows (LOL) that our scrawny incisors are not ideal for a carnivorous animal. If you look at the dentition of animals that eat only meat--or even who eat mostly meat you will notice their incisors--used for tearing the flesh--are larger and more plentiful.

G' day, DRuv.I just read...with great interest and enjoyment..your post. I would like to specifically address the part concerning vestigial traits in humans.

These are the the ones I am aware of.........

Nipples on men

Our coccyx (tail bone) which I think was a tail? Which we last had about 60 MYA when were in our "tree shrew" stage. (I do not recall the specific name for us at this stage, and have only seen some artistic renderings. A shrew is what the animal reminded me of. Or maybe a small lemur!

Body Hair. Obviously it was formerly scales and then fur.

Our fight or flight physiological response to duress, or a perceived physical threat. Our hair stands on end. Mammals today use this same tactic during their own f or f responses so as to make themselves appear larger to a potential enemy.

So...do you know of any other vestigial traits we have? And can you tell me ...

I could add:

Wisdom teeth: we have too many teeth for our mouths, a hangover from the time when our jaws protruded more and could accomodate more teeth.

Yeah..I think the goose bumps is a part of the "fight or flight" dynamic I mentioned, which causes our fur to stand up in order to make us appear larger and more threatening.

Wisdom teeth" For chewing herbal matter when we were vegetarians? Because lord knows (LOL) that our scrawny incisors are not ideal for a carnivorous animal. If you look at the dentition of animals that eat only meat--or even who eat mostly meat you will notice their incisors--used for tearing the flesh--are larger and more plentiful.

The incisors are actually for cutting rather than tearing. You are thinking of the canines and I've seen some people with quite fearsome canine teeth. :-)

G' day, DRuv.I just read...with great interest and enjoyment..your post. I would like to specifically address the part concerning vestigial traits in humans.

These are the the ones I am aware of.........

Nipples on men

Our coccyx (tail bone) which I think was a tail? Which we last had about 60 MYA when were in our "tree shrew" stage. (I do not recall the specific name for us at this stage, and have only seen some artistic renderings. A shrew is what the animal reminded me of. Or maybe a small lemur!

Body Hair. Obviously it was formerly scales and then fur.

Our fight or flight physiological response to duress, or a perceived physical threat. Our hair stands on end. Mammals today use this same tactic during their own f or f responses so as to make themselves appear larger to a potential enemy.

So...do you know of any other vestigial traits we have? And can you tell me ...

I could add:

Wisdom teeth: we have too many teeth for our mouths, a hangover from the time when our jaws protruded more and could accomodate more teeth.

Yeah..I think the goose bumps is a part of the "fight or flight" dynamic I mentioned, which causes our fur to stand up in order to make us appear larger and more threatening.

Wisdom teeth" For chewing herbal matter when we were vegetarians? Because lord knows (LOL) that our scrawny incisors are not ideal for a carnivorous animal. If you look at the dentition of animals that eat only meat--or even who eat mostly meat you will notice their incisors--used for tearing the flesh--are larger and more plentiful.

The incisors are actually for cutting rather than tearing. You are thinking of the canines and I've seen some people with quite fearsome canine teeth. :-)

OK. I am not sure I understand the difference between cutting and tearing though, at least as far as a masticating process goes.

And I had in my mind's eye beasts along the lines of Lions and tigers rather than dogs when I mentioned the dentition thereof.

At 7/4/2015 1:00:17 PM, Aran55633 wrote:Are you suggesting all chordates are derived from a single ancestor?

I'm assuming they are. According to Darwinism, they should be.

You need to write to the effect that:

There's overwhelming evidence of common ancestry among the chordates

I just read...with great interest and enjoyment..your post. I would like to specifically address the part concerning vestigial traits in humans.

I'm not a biologist or a professional science communicator, Drew. I'm just an average joe with a PhD in another scientific discipline, so when I dig into biological detail (even if I've read it before), I have to reference-check to ensure it's current, that I've remembered it right, and that the facts haven't become lost from the broader biological context so as to create distortions.

But with those caveats aside, i think human embryos and foetuses are particularly interesting, because they offer graphic evidence of common ancestry. Here's my understanding...

It used to be thought by late 19th century biologists (Ernst Haeckel in particular) that each individual vertebrate (say) would biologically 'evolve' in gestation through all the old Linnaean classes, from fish through ambhibian, reptile, bird and mammal before stopping at their designated station.

That's not true - human embryos don't have to recapitulate the entire vertebrate phylogeny to grow, however their development does wobble down paths humans no longer use, but which other chordates do -- before settling on the current human shape.

Gill-slits are an interesting one, for example: fish have them, of course, but echinoderms like star-fish, sea-urchins and sea-cucumbers don't (they breathe through their anuses, which can't be terribly pleasant.) However the acorn-worm (another invertebrate, and cousin to sea-cucumbers) has gill-slits, and so do early echinoderms -- so apparently sea-cucumbers now prefer to breathe through their butts, perhaps to make fewer holes in their bodies and less exposure to parasites and the like (and interestingly, some sea-cucumbers have butt-teeth, to keep unwanted critters from crawling in, but I digress.)

But the reason I mentioned it is: human foetuses have pharyngeal gill-slits too, and so do foetuses of all the other vertebrates, even ones that don't breathe water any more, and mammals don't breathe water in the womb either. They're not fully functioning gills, mind -- just the slits around the pharynx where functioning gills would go -- along with gill-arches -- as a sort of optional upgrade we never bought. So, proto-gills, really, like we might change our minds one day.

And tails. We have proto-tails too. As an embryo, our tail can measure as much as a sixth of our length before it's eventually absorbed -- if it is. Some babies are born with a 'soft tail', as reported in this case study: [http://www.pjsr.org...]

We know that evolution shrinks and removes organs as well as adding and changing them, however rather than removing the blueprint for the organ, the genetic code is often 'switched off'. Infant tails, for example, generally lack bone, but still have blood, muscle and nerves, so they're not just an odd skin-growth. So the human genome really does include some optional extras that nobody buys any more.

At 7/4/2015 1:00:17 PM, Aran55633 wrote:Are you suggesting all chordates are derived from a single ancestor?

I'm assuming they are. According to Darwinism, they should be.

You need to write to the effect that:

There's overwhelming evidence of common ancestry among the chordates

I just read...with great interest and enjoyment..your post. I would like to specifically address the part concerning vestigial traits in humans.

I'm not a biologist or a professional science communicator, Drew. I'm just an average joe with a PhD in another scientific discipline, so when I dig into biological detail (even if I've read it before), I have to reference-check to ensure it's current, that I've remembered it right, and that the facts haven't become lost from the broader biological context so as to create distortions.

But with those caveats aside, i think human embryos and foetuses are particularly interesting, because they offer graphic evidence of common ancestry. Here's my understanding...

It used to be thought by late 19th century biologists (Ernst Haeckel in particular) that each individual vertebrate (say) would biologically 'evolve' in gestation through all the old Linnaean classes, from fish through ambhibian, reptile, bird and mammal before stopping at their designated station.

That's not true - human embryos don't have to recapitulate the entire vertebrate phylogeny to grow, however their development does wobble down paths humans no longer use, but which other chordates do -- before settling on the current human shape.

Gill-slits are an interesting one, for example: fish have them, of course, but echinoderms like star-fish, sea-urchins and sea-cucumbers don't (they breathe through their anuses, which can't be terribly pleasant.) However the acorn-worm (another invertebrate, and cousin to sea-cucumbers) has gill-slits, and so do early echinoderms -- so apparently sea-cucumbers now prefer to breathe through their butts, perhaps to make fewer holes in their bodies and less exposure to parasites and the like (and interestingly, some sea-cucumbers have butt-teeth, to keep unwanted critters from crawling in, but I digress.)

But the reason I mentioned it is: human foetuses have pharyngeal gill-slits too, and so do foetuses of all the other vertebrates, even ones that don't breathe water any more, and mammals don't breathe water in the womb either. They're not fully functioning gills, mind -- just the slits around the pharynx where functioning gills would go -- along with gill-arches -- as a sort of optional upgrade we never bought. So, proto-gills, really, like we might change our minds one day.

And tails. We have proto-tails too. As an embryo, our tail can measure as much as a sixth of our length before it's eventually absorbed -- if it is. Some babies are born with a 'soft tail', as reported in this case study: [http://www.pjsr.org...]

We know that evolution shrinks and removes organs as well as adding and changing them, however rather than removing the blueprint for the organ, the genetic code is often 'switched off'. Infant tails, for example, generally lack bone, but still have blood, muscle and nerves, so they're not just an odd skin-growth. So the human genome really does include some optional extras that nobody buys any more.

Hope that might interest. :)

No, no...your communication skills are excellent!

Interesting about the slits on our larynxes. And, yeah...those tails on embryos are pretty hard to miss. And also for Creationists to explain! LOL. Though they do try. I wonder of some of these vestigial traits are addressed in some of the Christian apologist websites like the laughable "answersingenesis.com?" I would be interested in taking a gander over there, but I usually have a hard time in staying on that site for too long before clicking-off in frustration and disgust.

At 7/4/2015 1:00:17 PM, Aran55633 wrote:Are you suggesting all chordates are derived from a single ancestor?

I'm assuming they are. According to Darwinism, they should be.

You need to write to the effect that:

There's overwhelming evidence of common ancestry among the chordates

I just read...with great interest and enjoyment..your post. I would like to specifically address the part concerning vestigial traits in humans.

I'm not a biologist or a professional science communicator, Drew. I'm just an average joe with a PhD in another scientific discipline, so when I dig into biological detail (even if I've read it before), I have to reference-check to ensure it's current, that I've remembered it right, and that the facts haven't become lost from the broader biological context so as to create distortions.

But with those caveats aside, i think human embryos and foetuses are particularly interesting, because they offer graphic evidence of common ancestry. Here's my understanding...

It used to be thought by late 19th century biologists (Ernst Haeckel in particular) that each individual vertebrate (say) would biologically 'evolve' in gestation through all the old Linnaean classes, from fish through ambhibian, reptile, bird and mammal before stopping at their designated station.

That's not true - human embryos don't have to recapitulate the entire vertebrate phylogeny to grow, however their development does wobble down paths humans no longer use, but which other chordates do -- before settling on the current human shape.

Gill-slits are an interesting one, for example: fish have them, of course, but echinoderms like star-fish, sea-urchins and sea-cucumbers don't (they breathe through their anuses, which can't be terribly pleasant.) However the acorn-worm (another invertebrate, and cousin to sea-cucumbers) has gill-slits, and so do early echinoderms -- so apparently sea-cucumbers now prefer to breathe through their butts, perhaps to make fewer holes in their bodies and less exposure to parasites and the like (and interestingly, some sea-cucumbers have butt-teeth, to keep unwanted critters from crawling in, but I digress.)

But the reason I mentioned it is: human foetuses have pharyngeal gill-slits too, and so do foetuses of all the other vertebrates, even ones that don't breathe water any more, and mammals don't breathe water in the womb either. They're not fully functioning gills, mind -- just the slits around the pharynx where functioning gills would go -- along with gill-arches -- as a sort of optional upgrade we never bought. So, proto-gills, really, like we might change our minds one day.

And tails. We have proto-tails too. As an embryo, our tail can measure as much as a sixth of our length before it's eventually absorbed -- if it is. Some babies are born with a 'soft tail', as reported in this case study: [http://www.pjsr.org...]

We know that evolution shrinks and removes organs as well as adding and changing them, however rather than removing the blueprint for the organ, the genetic code is often 'switched off'. Infant tails, for example, generally lack bone, but still have blood, muscle and nerves, so they're not just an odd skin-growth. So the human genome really does include some optional extras that nobody buys any more.

Hope that might interest. :)

OK...I held my nose and mustered all the patience I could and manned-up and went over to AIG. Whew!

As a man of science you might be interested in what they had to say about some of the vestigial traits we have been discussing.

At 7/5/2015 9:05:28 PM, RuvDraba wrote:The human genome really does include some optional extras that nobody buys any more.

OK...I held my nose and mustered all the patience I could and manned-up and went over to AIG.

There's a bit on gill-slits there too: [https://answersingenesis.org...] Written by a self-professed retired OBGYN called Dr Mitchell, it makes the quite valid point that pharyngeal arches and gill slits are also called pharyngeal pouches (which is true, because they also make pouches), and that in humans some of these arches develop into handy things like lower two-thirds of the face and jaw, the auditory tube, the middle ear, the thyroid and the larynx (also true.) However, what Dr Mitchell (not herself a biologist) doesn't mention is that the same structures appear in all vertebrates; that in fish, they eventually develop into gills, and that biologists still colloquially call them 'gill slits' (e.g. here [http://www.nature.com...])

And the lesson is: just because a scientist says it, doesn't make it science. The paper I linked mentions 'gill slits' as a feature across all the deuterostomes (chordates, echinoderms and others) and was peer-reviewed. Dr Mitchell's rebuts gill-slits, and wasn't.

G' day, DRuv.I just read...with great interest and enjoyment..your post. I would like to specifically address the part concerning vestigial traits in humans.

These are the the ones I am aware of.........

Nipples on men

Our coccyx (tail bone) which I think was a tail? Which we last had about 60 MYA when were in our "tree shrew" stage. (I do not recall the specific name for us at this stage, and have only seen some artistic renderings. A shrew is what the animal reminded me of. Or maybe a small lemur!

Body Hair. Obviously it was formerly scales and then fur.

Our fight or flight physiological response to duress, or a perceived physical threat. Our hair stands on end. Mammals today use this same tactic during their own f or f responses so as to make themselves appear larger to a potential enemy.

So...do you know of any other vestigial traits we have? And can you tell me ...

I could add:

Wisdom teeth: we have too many teeth for our mouths, a hangover from the time when our jaws protruded more and could accomodate more teeth.

Yeah..I think the goose bumps is a part of the "fight or flight" dynamic I mentioned, which causes our fur to stand up in order to make us appear larger and more threatening.

Wisdom teeth" For chewing herbal matter when we were vegetarians? Because lord knows (LOL) that our scrawny incisors are not ideal for a carnivorous animal. If you look at the dentition of animals that eat only meat--or even who eat mostly meat you will notice their incisors--used for tearing the flesh--are larger and more plentiful.

The incisors are actually for cutting rather than tearing. You are thinking of the canines and I've seen some people with quite fearsome canine teeth. :-)

OK. I am not sure I understand the difference between cutting and tearing though, at least as far as a masticating process goes.

G' day, DRuv.I just read...with great interest and enjoyment..your post. I would like to specifically address the part concerning vestigial traits in humans.

These are the the ones I am aware of.........

Nipples on men

Our coccyx (tail bone) which I think was a tail? Which we last had about 60 MYA when were in our "tree shrew" stage. (I do not recall the specific name for us at this stage, and have only seen some artistic renderings. A shrew is what the animal reminded me of. Or maybe a small lemur!

Body Hair. Obviously it was formerly scales and then fur.

Our fight or flight physiological response to duress, or a perceived physical threat. Our hair stands on end. Mammals today use this same tactic during their own f or f responses so as to make themselves appear larger to a potential enemy.

So...do you know of any other vestigial traits we have? And can you tell me ...

I could add:

Wisdom teeth: we have too many teeth for our mouths, a hangover from the time when our jaws protruded more and could accomodate more teeth.

Yeah..I think the goose bumps is a part of the "fight or flight" dynamic I mentioned, which causes our fur to stand up in order to make us appear larger and more threatening.

Wisdom teeth" For chewing herbal matter when we were vegetarians? Because lord knows (LOL) that our scrawny incisors are not ideal for a carnivorous animal. If you look at the dentition of animals that eat only meat--or even who eat mostly meat you will notice their incisors--used for tearing the flesh--are larger and more plentiful.

The incisors are actually for cutting rather than tearing. You are thinking of the canines and I've seen some people with quite fearsome canine teeth. :-)

OK. I am not sure I understand the difference between cutting and tearing though, at least as far as a masticating process goes.